


Cupid Draw Back Your Bow

by Swing Set in December (swing_set13)



Series: Shoot to Thrill [2]
Category: The Avengers (2012), Thor (2011)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-08
Updated: 2011-08-08
Packaged: 2017-10-22 09:05:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/236397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swing_set13/pseuds/Swing%20Set%20in%20December
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The road to romance doesn't run smooth for Clint Barton.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cupid Draw Back Your Bow

Now living in the middle of nowhere, New Mexico can have it's perks. Like no one cares if you go grocery shopping in sweatpants, a woolen pullover and cowboy boots. It's pretty sweet since Darcy hasn't been able to wear them unironically since she was twelve. So supply runs are pretty chill. And she can get away with wearing a lot of plaid. But there are disadvantages. Like there being only one bar. If you like Johnny Cash and beer guts, it's your scene. If not, you're out of luck. Darcy usually cosys up to a bottle of 10$ wine and watches John Stewart but that's lame even to her. She'll readily admit it. But she's still in college, she can develop snooty tastes when she gets a better paycheck. Jane on the other hand doesn't do anything in halves. She's either sober or completely smashed. It's quite a skill.

So she's alone in the lab eating funyuns on a Thursday night, watching the tail end of the Colbert Report when Jane teeters into the lab.

"Guess who's drunk?" Jane has as much grace as drunken bear in a tutu.

"I guess Jane," Darcy says dryly, licking a funyun off her ring finger.

"You guessed right!" Jane smiles with full dimples before collapsing next to Darcy on the couch.

"Did you have fun?" asks Darcy arching her left eyebrow. S.H.I.E.L.D. must of had quite the shindig in their quaint little corner of nowhere.

"The best! You should have come!" Jane says flailing her arms in front of her. "Someone asked about you." She half mumbles it into the couch.

"Who?" Darcy asks but gets a snore in response. Jane's dead to the world. Darcy pats her head and gets up to find a blanket. It probably wasn't that important.

\---

Darcy comes to the lab the next day armed with coffee and the greasy spoon special from the diner for Jane. But Jane's already scribbling on an empty white board with a vibrantly violent fuchsia marker. Darcy takes that as a further sign that Jane is inhuman. What kind of person doesn't get a hangover? It's unnatural.

They demolish the food together along with the coffee.

It's around lunch time when Jane resurfaces from her calculations and rejoins the world outside rainbow bridges. Darcy is collating data into three different piles in front of the lab on the floor only to have Jane block out the sun.

"There's a heat wave warning in effect, so I'm ordering you to get out of our furnace-like lab and go somewhere air-conditioned lest you die," Jane says in a matter of fact tone with her hands on her hips.

"Heat wave?" Darcy says blearily, stretching her arms. "Oh yeah, I guess I'm drenched in sweat."

"Go and cool off," Jane says, tossing her the keys to the van. "And bring back supper."

Darcy rolls ungracefully up from the floor, keys in hand.

"I feel so melty," she grouses. Jane hands her a pop tart and pushes her out of the lab. She's already devouring the other in front of the ancient fan. "Don't melt!"

Keys in hand, and pop tart in her mouth, she starts the van and cranks up the A/C.

\---

It's at the 7-Eleven when she get's the feeling she's being watched. She knows she's riveting on most days but she's getting her Slurpee on, it's not that awesome to watch. Feigning a stretch she scans the store. Jenna, the cashier, is absorbed in this month's O magazine, there's a teen trying to subtly stuff cans of Red Bull into his pants and then there's a guy wearing way too many layers for this heat.

Bingo.

Checking her purse for her taser, she caps her Slurpee and heads for the cash. Jenna doesn't even glance up from her magazine to give Darcy her change.

"Don't make me call your mom, Aaron," Jenna says as the teen moves towards the exit. Darcy uses the distraction of Aaron emptying his pants of Red Bull to make her exit. First rule of 7-Eleven, Jenna knows everyone's mothers. Even Darcy's. And she out of state. That takes skill.

Darcy's already around the corner with her taser in hand waiting for her shadow. It doesn't take long to here the measured foot steps before she tosses her drink at him.

"Don't move!" she warns waving her taser at him.

"What the fuck?!" rumbles out a familiar voice. Though it's hard to look intimidating when you're covered in purple Slurpee.

"You!" she shouts, and feels like tasering him anyway. "I can't believe I wasted a perfectly good Slurpee on you!"

Special Agent Clint Barton merely glares at her as the purple Slurpee runs down his chest.

"Why are you being such a creeper?" she asks, pointing her taser at him.

"Stop waving that in my face!" he growls grabbing her taser arm.

"Let go!" she yells, tossing the empty cup at his head. He lets go, and she stumbles back cradling her taser.

"Urgh, it's all sticky."

\---

They end up at the IHOP. For three reasons. One being it has air conditioning, the second being for tactical cover and finally because Barton owed her for ruining her lunch. They make quite a pair. Barton had to buy a pink Rooty Tooty Fresh ‘N Fruity IHOP t-shirt from the gift shop area because the manager refused to serve them if he wasn't wearing a shirt. It should be a crime to have that many muscles.

Darcy is steadily devouring a mountain of pancakes across from Barton who ordered waffles of all things.

"We're in the house of pancakes," she says re-dousing her golden flapjacks in maple syrup. "It's sacrilegious to order anything else."

"Belgian waffles are always an option," he says with a sunny smile.

"Purple was a good color on you," she says in lieu of a retort before making a grab for the can of whipped cream. "You should wear it more often."

He glares at her.

"So mind telling me why you were stalking me?"

"Protection detail," he says, ninjaing the can of whipped cream from her. She raises her left eyebrow. "Covert protection."

"Covert? This town has like six streets - you can see danger a mile away," she says, unimpressed, waving her fork at him.

Barton grimaces into his waffles.

"You're better off lurking around the lab," she says blithely before taking a gulp of juice.

"Is that an invitation?" he says with a shit eating grin.

She chokes on her OJ.

\---

On her way back to the lab, Darcy is still trying to figure out if Special Agent Clint Barton is still following her but she doubts he'd risk being spotted in that shirt. Though the thought of him shirtless has become more appealing than she initially thought.

She's soon assaulted with a lab smelling of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies.

"When did you have time to bake?" she says, dumping a pizza box on an empty corner of one of the lab benches, eying the tempting plate of cookies.

"Oh," Jane says absentmindedly. "I did it on the roof."

Darcy gives her a squinty look.

"I needed a break from calculations," Jane continues, grabbing plates for the pizza. "The radio said it was hot enough to cook an egg, I wanted cookies. Milk's in the fridge."

Darcy beelines for a clean mug. "I take it all back Jane, science is cool."

Jane just smiles serenely as she divides up the pizza.

"I got an interesting phone call," says Jane.

"Did Erik forget his keys?" asks Darcy pouring milk into her favourite mug.

"It wasn't Erik, apparently we're getting a security detail from S.H.I.E.L.D. starting tomorrow. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"

Darcy pleads the fifth. It'd be rude to talk with her mouth full of cookie.

\---


End file.
